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Thursday, August 27, 2009

We have all seen the painting done by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Some of us have seen it in its original location and some of us have seen the painting but all of us have seen it a time or two here and there. God is extending his hand to the ‘generic’ Adam and Adam is extending his hand as well. Their fingers are nearly touching. Art is not truth but great art is suggestive, indicative and pointing toward the truth, much as the hands are reaching in the painting.

God is not an old man with a white beard. However, if he wanted to be, that would be immediately so. God is a serpent. I took this painting and had my head super-imposed over Adam’s head for my album, God in Country. In my version, God is extending a guitar. I’m rather fond of this variation. After all, I am Adam, as are you, and the condition indicated in the original is an ongoing and enduring state. God is reaching for us. All of us are reaching for God but have encountered confusion as to what it is we are reaching for. We find that out when we gain possession of whatever we were reaching for and very quickly learn it’s not what we were after. This is why all of the possibilities and acquisitions of the rich are reduced to ashes in their mouths. They know they didn’t get the item and one of their chief satisfactions is your belief that they really did get what they were after and what you were after too.

Because we are already rich we seek to manifest the material expression of it. Because we are already powerful we wish to be in a position to demonstrate it. Because we are already famous we seek celebrity among our fellows. These are just some more confusions in the myriad confusions that toy with us on the road to nowhere. We have it partly right in the same way that desire is the agent of God’s will.

Just as we mistake what God is and who we are, we mistake everything else by defining it according to what we want. Adam translated means, ‘namer of things’. It stands to reason then that the first step on the path is the deep seated conviction of, “I don’t know.” The next step is the deep seated conviction that ‘everything is under control’.

Attempting to employ these profound truths leads to more confusion because there is a definite difference between intellectual and visceral understanding. You can say, “I don’t know” all you want but you still think you know. You can tell yourself everything is under control all day long but you still think it isn’t. Some of this is tied in to free will and some of it is tied into the root apprehension of our atavistic or primordial fear. Our deathless being is in a temporarily mortal state. Our job is to become consciously immortal while still in the body but... there are all those other things.

Whenever we think of God, or whatever you want to call it, we think of something apart from ourselves. Whatever efforts we might make following this initial error will come to no positive end. God apart is useless. God apart is actually what we understand as the Devil.

We’re told we have to strive hard. We are told to pray without ceasing. We are told to practice the presence of God; to live a moral life, to be generous toward and forgiving of our fellows. Some of us try in many different ways to apply these and other modalities to the purpose of union but we don’t get anywhere. The fact is that it is impossible for us to accomplish it. We cannot do it. It has to ‘be accomplished’ within us. This is the meaning hidden in The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus and in all scriptural works. Like the bat shit annoyances of Zen and the ‘not this’, ‘not that’ monkey mind dance, the answer is as confusing as the koans. You have to try with all your might and then you have to give up. The purpose of all the effort is to prepare the ground for deeper surrender. This is the purpose of our failures.

Everybody is worried about what’s coming soon, except for those who are dreaming in Disneyland or collecting trivia in the hope that knowing a whole lot of useless things will cause someone to fall in love with them. We are all operating under false pretenses.

Consider this,

You purchase an outfit you think someone will like. You add on the accessories. Maybe you are after someone who is aware of designer labels or maybe you are zone specific and you want a sports model; a metrosexual model, a country model, a Christian or Muslim model, an attractive model or just your regular runway model. You tailor yourself to appear to be what you think they would like. It’s a little like baiting a hook. You want to capture and have someone that fits a profile. You get your hair done. You get false eyelashes and you paint yourself to look like an urban evening clown. All of this is a form of pretense, which is intended to conceal what you normally are. Both of you run into each other dressed as someone else and that’s just what you get. Happy now? Now you have two people with someone other than the commercial indicated.

It’s impossible to conceal ourselves forever. The initial face we proffer is gradually replaced by the face of our habitual nature and sooner or later the face that appears under stress or while in danger will reveal itself as well. Passionate relationships are generally doomed unless you are courting the divine. They certainly fade. Only friendships endure.

We worry about the future without tumbling to the fact that what we are is our future. Whatever catastrophe the world has in mind, it always considers this first in respect of individual cases. People will take Tarot cards and try to use them to predict the future. The purpose of the cards is meditation to adjust the future. Why would you want to predict something that you can be altering with every breath? All of these things tie into our ‘wrong approach syndrome’. Just as you can’t take anything material with you when you go, you can’t enter the presence of the divine with any extraneous personality models, tics and eccentricities or add-ons, cosmetics or camouflage. These things need to be stripped away and suffering will do that. The whole game is engineered to show us that we are helpless, whether you are Alexander the Great or just you.

If you are sincere and determined you cannot fail. When you do fail you will be in that state of surrender. Original life generally ends with the death of childhood and all the time following is either repetition or a struggle for regenerated innocence. Most achieve senility; some achieve the illumined child like state. Every condition in life imperfectly mirrors what should be with a bad copy. Senility as opposed to regenerated innocence and... you can find many parallels. Consider that the Dark Lord made orcs as a perversion on elves.

I’m not a very good guitar or piano player. My grasp of foreign languages is terrible. When I think of all the things that I can’t do well, I always have to stop long before I’ve completed the list. I’m not very good at a great many things but I do seem to be persistent about connecting with the divine. Truth be told, none of these other things have ever been that important to me and that’s why I’m not very good at them.

The divine knows more things about us, that we are unaware of, than the things we are aware of. We put more time into impressing our fellows, who are busy doing the same thing to us (all while each of us keep glancing at ourselves in the mirror), than we do at our real work. Nature is watching us. The hidden kingdoms are watching us. Aliens in space watch us like we were reality TV, which we are. The animal kingdom watches us and there’s quite a list actually. For those who are engaged in the only real occupation, every one of these kingdoms is engaged in assisting us. Otherwise they are opposing us.

It is never a good idea to pursue the things of the world instead of the enduring truths that hide in the foliage. It is especially not a good idea now and that is why it’s so hard and why there is so much magnetic attraction of images and objects resounding upon our appetites and desire body. A portal is opening. It has been a long time coming and it will be a long time gone. Whatever may or may not be coming is unimportant. That’s just scenery through the train window.

The key thing to remember is that the character in the painting who symbolizes the ineffable is reaching and wiser minds had better be reaching too. When the visible realm is engaged in major readjustments it is a good idea to have an invisible friend.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

You can read Aesop’s Fables. You can read Mother Goose. You can read The Bible; The Koran, Sufi Tales and any of the Hindu Epics and find a similar thread running through all of them. They are the object lessons of existence. I imagine there are some who would object to my mention of folk tales with scriptural stories and more so for my mentioning them first but... there are tales more ancient than these stories and there have been tales since there has been a story to tell.

One of the things you see repeated in many of the tales and stories is the refusal of the population to accept an incoming calamity. They refuse to prepare and they refuse to change their ways. Often these calamities are sent because humanity has gone off in the wrong direction and needs some event to put it back on track. Generally humanity will get softer nudges first but they never pay any attention to them and that is why it eventually comes down to shock treatment.

The story of Noah’s Ark has a number of object lessons contained within it. It clearly shows how those who have the inside track on pending circumstance are considered to be mad by their fellows. It also shows that there are times when the board is cleared of what has been, so that what will be can operate with a clean slate. The scroll of history shows that there are times of relative peace and times of pervasive unrest. It shows that both have replaced each other with routine uniformity and also that you can usually see it coming.

The reason people cannot see something coming is because their focus is placed on the more immediate concerns of their appetites, desires and ambitions. Self-interest tends to operate against self-interest. In Spring and Fall you can see how this operates in the animal kingdom, when there is more road kill than usual, due to mating and feeding concerns. In the human realm the same distractions that kill the animals are flashing like neon all through the day and night.

People think if something takes longer to kill you that it is less dangerous. This is one of the ways that human reasoning and logic tend toward the general state of graduating suicide which ends most lives. Logic and reasoning are easily compromised whenever they are measured against the drive for acquisition. They are accommodated to the desire of the moment and the mind sorts out the pro’s and con’s to the advantage of the acquisition. Very often the acquisition is forgotten shortly after it is acquired or necessitates frequent reappearances at the well because the satisfaction of a particular act does not satisfy the actual hunger that is masquerading as a physical desire. This is how the drive for union and oneness gets confused with sex.

The drive for physical sex accomplishes other things besides an ongoing generation of the species. It reduces a particular luminous quality that would, ordinarily give rise to divine analytical wisdom, in favor of a temporary forgetting of the self... a tiny moment of death that masquerades as the true death which opens the door to liberation. It also sets a buffet table for those invisible energies that feed upon sexual fluids and creates a backwoods, kinfolk thing with the sort of progeny unleashed as a result.

The distraction of appetites is what occupies the human mind between the temporary occurrences of physical life as it travels between birth and death. There are appetites and survival imperatives. One does not satisfy and the other does not protect but rather makes one vulnerable due to what I call, ‘the wrong move syndrome’. You’ve heard that line about ‘he who would lose his life will save it and he who would save his life will lose it’. That’s in one of those stories somewhere. Everything you need to know is in those stories and tales but few pay any attention. Quite often those who are reading the stories and tales are paying no attention because it doesn’t have anything to do with them.

In the Mahabharata, if I remember correctly, one of The Pandavas came upon a creature, some sort of a bird and it asked him what was the greatest mystery of all. The answer was... though we see men dying all around us we do not think that we ourselves will die.

There’s more to this as there is more to just about everything in all of those stories and tales. One of the reasons that we don’t think we shall die is because... inside of us... hidden from our conscious minds, is the certitude of reincarnation and the ongoing stream of lives as they wend their way through the jungles of sensation toward the land of bliss beyond. Some are eager for this result and success is speedy. Some have little interest in anything outside of the jungles of sensation. Some of us are made differently.

Our appetites and desires sting us constantly and remorselessly like wasps. We get no peace because we allow these items to dance on the stage of the mind where they endlessly replace each other with a new and improved version of the last disappointment. This is an epidemic insanity within the collective human psyche and seemingly learned and intelligent people will argue- with the willing assistance of compromised reason and logic- that none of this is so because... well, because it interferes with what they want.

There are many clever and smart people who move about, much as their similar animals move about in their realm. Wisdom remains elusive though, no doubt, they imagine they possess it.

Except in rare instances, there is no survival here and one would do well to factor that in. There are some who have been walking on this earth for centuries in the role of caretakers but that is not likely to be a state conferred upon those who can’t even sort out the elementary passions. What we do is romanticize those passions which legitimize them and makes them into pyrrhic displays of a fatal immolation... it’s not much different than a moth around a light bulb.

You can see the whole of society led and driven by these passions; half naked bodies are draped over every product. The rich and powerful parade their trophies without knowing that they are escorting corpses through cob-webbed banquet halls. They put so much work into gaining the right to prance in front of the rest of the world that is denied their status... for the moment... and then it’s over and there’s no more credit in their accounts and it’s back to the wheel, baby.

All the fantasies of being a world leader; a great lover, a famous artist, a magnate or whatever one might desire are all available but never to result in what the dreamer expected. These roles exist for the lessons in them that are outlined in the tales and stories.

A true world leader is led. A great lover has the divine as the object of their passion, a famous artist is inspired and does no more than channel, a magnate is successful only to the degree of their philanthropy.

When one is understanding of these things there is a great deal of humor to be gleaned from observation and compassion seems to be the greater fruit of more protracted observation. One sees on all sides the Sisyphean efforts of a fool’s passage into futility. It is astonishing, the amount of effort people put into things of no value. Even a portion of the same energy, rightly directed, would provide a bounteous harvest of useful things.

There’s no telling anyone anything. They understand or they do not and those who do understand... know at what price understanding will come ...to those who do not understand. It is likely we all pay that price but it would be a matter of the degree of suffering necessary to get the point.

Here in this time a great deal can be sorted in a short time. This is where wisdom can be observed ...among those employed at this work.

Visible sings: ♫ Nothing More ♫'Nothing More' is track no. 5 of 13 on Visible's 2007 album 'The Sacred and The Profane'Lyrics(pops up)

Monday, August 17, 2009

I seldom go about looking into the information pools that make one think of the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes. Early on I gave a lot of time to the study of The Western Mystery Tradition and the tenets of the Hindu Tradition. The confusion of terms and similarity of meaning between them is proof positive that the same system, is the same system, in all systems that work at all. There are debasements of this system and out of these come what we see of the religions of materialism, Satanism, Scientology and myriad superstitions whose fruit is chaos. You might consider that what appear to be differences in the single divine schematic are merely accommodations to culture and different times.

I’m going to link something today which is fairly long and I have not finished reading all of it. You may read it all or you may skim it but you will find that there is quite a lot of information and some of it you have not encountered before. I am putting this here by way of explanation for why I am consistently positive about what lies ahead. I feel as I did before I read it because it just confirms what I have believed all along. That said, the next thing to say is, “I don’t know.” In The Bible we are told that God will “come like a thief in the night.” This is an important point to remember. No one knows the appointed hour and the whole of the circumstance is not fixed. It is in flux. Much of what we will be and what will be is dependent on what we think and do in the moment.

There is an obvious fixity to things. One has only to look into the Heavens on any clear night to see that there is an order there. At the same time, everything is moving... this shows that change is the cornerstone of existence. How we change... and in what direction, has a great deal to do with our intention. There is a certain latitude within what is fixed. Never has our intention been as important as it is now. We are on the verge of immense possibility. This is also why it is so hard. The ancient forces of ignorance and materialism are at war with the urge for liberation. Think of it as something like the relationship between gravity and anything that attempts to fly.

You will notice as you are reading the link that, in every example, the indication is one of positive result. My personal experiences in this life and in relation to my activated Kundalini bears out the majority of what I read in this link. If I were to depart at all from what I have read it would be to say that prediction is one of those things where the divine intends to surprise you and, in the process, inform you that you do not know. It is coming, to be sure, but when that is... we cannot know. We can only be watchful for the signs from the mysterious movement of what lies beyond our comprehension.

The world as it is today is living proof of life gone wrong. It wallows in it and parades it before us, encouraging us to join in the revelry; performing the death dance of that which fades. So it is that some are amassing fortunes at the expense of others. So it is that all manner of evils proliferate and are justified by intricate argument among reasonable men and women. Within the convolutions of their endless lies their attention is always upon their wallets. They are going to find that their wallets are empty.

All who despair in these times and who feel that the coming result will be one of chaos and horror are suffering from a simple malady. They have their eyes and minds fixed overlong upon the world of appearances. In respect of the world of appearances it is correct to say that this world, as we know it, is doomed but... the world of appearances is not the only world. Even here it is not the only world. It is a common mistake to believe that the disorder one sees is the true state of affairs. It is the true state of affairs only in regard to the temporary. What we see has been bound for destruction for a long time. The only question that exists for any of us is how much a part of it we are. If you are a committed part of the world of error then you may be sure that error is soon to experience correction. It comes to correction by going as far out of balance as is needed to trigger the scales.

The most important point to keep in mind is that in this time there is the possibility of rapid advancement. One can accomplish things in this time that would be impossible at any other time. This is where our concern should lie. Our concern should not rest on anxiety for judgment performed on the wicked. They are busy with that on their own. Their every device both leads and exposes them on the way. You can see it happening right in front of you on this very day. What we are seeing is going to increase in intensity. It is going to become much more intense as it approaches its resolution.

Various mysteries which have been concealed in plain sight are going to unveil. The reason for the survival of ancient structures; pyramids and the like are going to give up their secrets. It is quite possible that there are many who will see none of it, or... it may be revealed for all to see. It is impossible to know what the one mind has in mind for the looming spectacle of the end of this age and the beginning of that age.

There is a vast darkness across the human mind in the moment and the only options of the moment are to strive within and to practice an awareness of what may seem to be invisible and out of reach. We are presently like a seed unfurling in the Earth and pressing up through the darkness of the soil in search of the light. Some are reaping what they value from the marketplace above and some are pressing forth ‘as the value’ that will soon break the surface of the soil to the wonder of all; especially so for those who are engaged in harvesting the temporary.

All the ordinary things are out of wack at the moment and that is why there is such pressure and distress. The point of this pressure and distress is to serve the seeking soul with the power to drive up and within. It is not meant for the use of fighting against appearances. These things take care of themselves. When the leaves are meant to fall they fall. When the rain wants to come it will and so on and so forth.

Time has been altered and there is much less of it as it has speeded up in its approach toward the moment. We need to take all of these forces and channel them in the direction we wish to go; otherwise we are wrestling with an anaconda. We are wrestling with ourselves instead of working with ourselves. One of the primary efforts where our attention must be placed is in the unification of our various separate selves for a single purpose. We are a collection of different identities that emerge for different experiences and appetites and they need to come together in a single focus and some need to be discarded altogether. It is hard to discard what one does not understand, which is why self-inquiry is of paramount importance.

In this particular time, any effort made will pay out massive dividends; just as Goldman Sachs is reaping its own temporary dividends in such large amounts... as above, so below. It is precisely because it is so difficult in the moment that the return is so great. We are breaking the crust of very old limitations and ignorance. On a positive note, we should remember that the seed will find its way under the power within it, even through concrete.

The more we are joined in common purpose with the common purpose of our uncommon goal... the greater will be our capacity to engage. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know but I am confirming it and that... I know from my own experience, is a very good thing. If it were an easy task then everyone would waltz through the door in the last moment after showering off the evidence of their final, farewell coupling.

Look at the wide, wide distance between the blind, material groping in the world of fire and fear and the sure and certain path upon which so few are progressing. God does not have a Twitter account. Powerful entities are in attendance for all manner of assistance. One has to accept this as so because of the present state of the power of appearances. Appearances are deceiving. You have heard this many times before. You know it to be true. Believe it.

Visible sings: ♫ It Must Be Love ♫'It Must Be Love' is track no. 8 of 12 on Visible's 2007 album 'Color Ball'

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

I can’t shake the feeling that this time is not going to be like all the other times. Though it is rare, God sometimes intrudes. God is always present but in a state of dreaming as he interpenetrates the creation. Sometimes he wakes up in people here and there and usually they are the types that confound the scholars and experts. They are sometimes illiterate or considered mad but the power of their presence and contributions is undeniable.

God is a serpent and when he awakens it is by the process of moving up the spine. Then the cobra-hood grants that umbrella effect over the realized one and you’ve got the man himself in some permutation or another for the specific purpose of the time and circumstances in which he finds himself. You might think of the person as a unique flute and the working of God within the instrument produces the singular sounds that are the result of God in concert with the host medium.

Most people cannot see the hood but they can certainly feel its radiance. Not every expression of God, chosen by God, manifests in this manner. There are other formulas, just as there is a difference between a sage and a saint. Each of us is destined for some particular expression of the divine and each of us houses the divine at some stage of enfoldment. This is why you see Hindus bow to one another to say, “I salute the God within you” ...Namaste.

These are dark times and anyone who has been reading here is sharing common apprehensions about the constant evidence that psychopaths and materialists have hi-jacked manifest existence. Not a day goes by when I do not hear from someone about how we are all screwed. My life has not been easy but I am lucky in one respect. I am granted interaction with the divine.

It’s not a continuous interaction, nor is my behavior consistent in respect of the presence. That may be why it is not continuous but I’m working on it. Having been granted the occasional ‘walk in the garden’ in my mind, I know that the presence is actual. God is real. God is a living presence. God permeates everything. Everything is made out of God and there is a part of God that is apart from it which is always of greater power than any time when a part of that power is in manifestation.

Lovers of God often speak of the contact in sensual and romantic terms. Contact with God is very much like sex but infinitely more pervasive and filling. The ecstasy is unlike anything the world can provide and it ruins one for the common attractions. Once it has happened one is forever bereft until it happens again and there is an intense striving required for re-encountering.

People without the passion and will to seek the divine scoff at this mysterious presence and are filled with the bombast of their own accomplishments which are soon forgotten as if they never were. Anything great that any man or woman ever accomplished was accomplished by God through them. God is the only actor and the only enjoyer of the fruits of existence. Free will gives you the opportunity to cooperate with your eventual flowering or to resist it. This is all free will really is; a question of whether to cooperate or not.

The tempter side of the divine exists for the purpose of leading one away into the passions of the temporary realm. It tests your resolve. Once it has tempted you into something it then begins to torment you to return to the path. The road of experience is necessary but at some point one should become aware of the dynamics of the whole matter. The devil is either serving you or ruling you and to compel service, then there must be the power of the divine in presence. The devil is a harsh taskmaster. He serves the process just as does every single component in life.

In times of materialism the first thing one forgets is the natural divinity of their state. They sacrifice the awareness of it for the sweet and sticky end of things. Sweet and sticky guarantees bondage and that is the purpose of death to free you from it. The entertainer who uses that phrase is a willing servant of world bondage and many of her associates in all fields of endeavor are too. The others are unwitting tools driven to act without comprehension. One who is in the presence has no fear of any of them and can come and go at will.

This sweet and sticky thing, as well as the drive for immediate gratification, is nicely expressed in the tale of Jacob and Esau. The many parables in the many traditions all detail some stage or situation in the various stations of the upward road. We ignore them though. They don’t apply to us. The truth is that people opt out for what they opt out for and for every porthole into the shadow realm of false light there is a ‘justification world’ in which everything supports ones departure from the path.

The tale of existence, from ancient worlds beneath the slumbering sands of the ocean, to worlds as yet unformed is always the same. Across the planes of all these colorations and structures move the same attractions and fantasies, the same tests and trials. There you are again, going to the well of dreams for another amusement park ride or seeking that well and oasis among all the Fata Morgana of the deceiving world.

A wise man once said that you can tell the true path by the number of people laughing at it. Here’s the rub. Those who have compromised their path into some porthole of the relative world are not unaware of what they have done. Even when hiding it from themselves there is a prevalent unease. Whether they are accomplished scholars; scientists, renowned artists or whatever... in falling short... in making a deal... the essence of the thing is denied them and whatever they may say or create will lack the integrity of the one who holds it all together.

Therefore it is natural for them to scoff because they know what they have denied themselves by not being equal to the task. They will talk in that vain and elegant language, preening before each other in the high towers of the world and then they will be gone leaving no real impression on anything except the canvas of their Karma.

So many times when the world is shaken by great events or natural cataclysms, it is not too long before the same personality types are once again engaged in spinning the web of ‘business as usual’. Still, I think it’s going to be different this time. I’ve no idea in what way it will be different but I am hopeful in ways for which I have no evidence here. I have been told some things and I’ve mentioned them at other times. I suppose what I am saying is there is no harm in having faith in the one who controls everything and having a ‘wait and see’ attitude. It’s only a test of faith after all and you either have it or you don’t. You can develop it. It’s not like there isn’t evidence of the presence all through history. Surely something grand and masterful has turned a phrase, painted a picture or composed a tune now and again.

As we are meant to house the qualities of God as we let go of our shortcomings and delusions, one can intuit that this means a state of great power and awareness. It is not for the timid, the confused or the weak. Letting appearances overwhelm you means you are actually giving power to the force that holds you in servitude. You wonder where you will find the strength and you waver. Stop relying on yourself. You’re useless. Remember that someone is holding it all together and if they were not is would fall away. It would dissolve like the dream that it is.

This power that holds it all together is what allows the good and the evil among us to possess self awareness. Whatever will we have, for whatever purpose we choose to turn it to, comes from this one will. Consider what would happen if the one will simply withdraws this from the evil ones among us. Accept that everything is under control and working out exactly according to a plan. Put yourself in agreement with the source of all control and see what happens.

Visible sings: ♫ Every Day ♫'Every Day' is track no. 11 of 11 on Visible's 2001 album 'God in Country'Lyrics(pops up)

Friday, August 07, 2009

I remember various times sitting before various spiritual masters. Some of them weren’t actually spiritual masters. They were people who had developed certain Siddhis which gave them the appearance of power, wisdom or poise. They might have been well intentioned for the most part. Good intentions would be more useful if good and evil weren’t playing musical chairs all the time.

Back in the day there used to be these professional disciples. Some of them actually called themselves ‘guru whores’. They’d move from one teacher to another, like bees among the flowers and they took a certain pride among their associates in comparing how many masters they had met and telling the tales about how this one blew them away this much and that one blew them away this much and so on and so forth.

After Rajneesh hit the scene a different sort of disciple started showing up. These were no longer guru whores... well, maybe, maybe not but they were more intent on becoming spiritual masters themselves and, if you are on the scene then you know just how many of these folks there are. Some of them just went right into business because that had all been explained to them now and business was okay now. Everything was okay now. I don’t mean they went into the business of being gurus, though some did, I mean business period.

There was a time you could go to Goa and see quite a selection of them and, with the emergence of Tantra, a lot of them got into the business of sex magic. This doesn’t mean there was anything magical about their sex but rather that they used particular seduction games and they probably explained to themselves that they were, ‘harvesting power’ or opening people up or making us all one, one encounter at a time. You could find gurus handing you a pen so that you could write your cellphone number on their leg.

The book publisher who used me as an object lesson of what happens to someone who does business with a Crowley fanboy has a forum where a lot of these burned out tantrics get together and troll for the younger males who come and go in search of something other than what they wind up getting. These globe-trotting tantrics may have once been hetero but not any more. There’s a spiritual reason for this but I’m not inclined to get into discussing it at the moment.

I’ve never gotten along with Roger Nietzsche’s and I never trusted Osho, nee Rajneesh. The people who would argue with me about my distrust always let me know I was repressed for taking exception to his promotion of sexual license. I take no back seat to anyone in terms of sexual license. You could say that I frolicked freely. However, I never taught it as a lifestyle and I never assumed I was doing what I should when I wasn’t doing what I should. The way I saw it, I had to pass through it or it was going to burn me up. The good news is that I’m not over on that forum, trolling for young boys while purring on about spiritual mysteries refracted through the dead pools of my eyes.

I’ve never gotten along well with most devotees except for the Hare Krishna’s, which I am fond of and who include among their ranks some truly sweet people. I don’t get along with most devotees because most devotees haven’t bothered to live to the fullest before realizing it’s not the way. Most of them decided they knew all about it without ever having engaged it and are now full on authorities sans experience, the way Catholic priests know all about the meaning and hardship of the sex they don’t practice and so can advise their constituents about all of it’s facets while their own sexual forces break through the weakest link in the chain.

A lot of devotees don’t evolve much before they move on into the real life that they knew all about when they rejected it the first time. They can sit in front of the master for years and still be asking the same questions and never tumble to the fact that they are a dog chasing its own tail. There will be no solutions at that particular level because it is an endless loop.

What a spiritual master is supposed to do is to light the lamp of aspiration within and then guide you- according to your trust and focus- through the timeless routines, obstacles and tests encountered by every seeker who ever went looking. A real spiritual master has got you coming and going and the degree of his/her love and support of you is beyond your comprehension.

At any time in this world there are only a few, real spiritual masters. These days the bogus bin is overflowing and the fountain of the living waters is obscured by the darkness of the times. It stuns me that people actually think they are living in civilization and that this modern world is a high point in recently recorded history. This is because we confuse technology with civilization and civilization with organization and eventually everything gets really dis-organized like the way it is now.

We all have duties and debts. This is why I am not in the Himalayas where I wish I was; Shambhala, which I don’t deserve ...or in that permanent psychedelic state I haven’t earned yet.

I used to have a lot of character defects. Some, with more of their own than they know about, might say I still do. The source of many character defects is the ceaseless ability to see them in others through the length of each following day. You’ll note that this is something small children do not do unless it’s already been drummed into their heads. These days I have managed to drop a lot of them and outrun some others but... some of them just won’t go away. I realize now that it is beyond my capacity to rid myself of them and no amount of effort on my part is going to move them an inch. That’s what a spiritual master is for and one does need to come to this particular realization before the master can accomplish their removal.

Sometimes these flaws are left in long past their sell-by date for inscrutable reasons. Mostly they remain so long as our focus is on others because, it is truly said, “they know not what they do.” I’ve found that when you come to the point of surrender and cannot surrender it is because of a particular point needing to be made and that is the full understanding that ‘everything is under control’. When I say everything, I mean everything. I can grasp this intellectually but oh... the difficulty of full acceptance is a labor unlike any other. This is why we should inexplicably be grateful for being crushed. We can’t flow through God’s hand until we have been pounded into sand.

I’d say that the entirety of my life these days is awaiting the arrival of the certainty in the certitude, the assurance in the faith and the final, unshakeable determination within the state of being determined. I can’t go any further on my own; not that I ever took a single step under my own power.

As hard as these times are they are the best of all possible times for realization for those so inclined. I can, we can, only throw ourselves upon the mercy of the court. I wish I could do more but that’s probably how I got into trouble in the first place.